The British police forget what country they are in

david skinner

Whilst we may look in wonder and amazement at the frontal attack on Geert Wilders, in Holland, by Islam, on freedoms of the west, that have take centuries to win and the blood of countless men, women and children, we seem to be oblivious to the fact that simultaneously secularist forces within the citadel are destroying the defences.

Today, Monday 25th 2010 in the House of Lords, London ( mark it in your diaries), a potentially catastrophic amendment to the Equality Bill will be debated and voted on. In effect this will paralyse Christians, in particular, but those of all faiths and none, to act and live according to their beliefs - a liberty that has been fought for and enshrined, though not always perfectly- in Britain since the Reformation.

This really is the big one : the onslaught by Islam from without and secularism from within are being played simultaneously even as I type.

Meanwhile people go about their business; worry about the economy; climate change; the war in Afghanistan; who will be voted off the next TV programme and the weather - completely and utterly oblivious to the immanent disaster that is about overtake them.

When Abraham was pleading to God for the survival of Sodom, God said that if he could find ten god fearing people in that city, then he would not destroy it.

I have put up a petition to the government asking that the amendment to the Equality Bill will be removed - today in the House of lords.
In just under a month, or three weeks ( I have lost count), the petition has collected how many votes? How many believing Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and those who value freedom of speech and conscience do you think exist in Britain out of a population of 61,399,118? Will god find six million? one million? half a million? a hundred thousand even? No, just over 31,000. How the enemies must laugh.

Looking through the list of names of the signatories one can see a mix of races and ethnicity, but there is one name above all that is missing: “Mohammed.”
Though invited to sign up to the petition Muslims have remained singularly shy. Is this due to fear of being seen to identify with other faiths or is it that they see that it is to their advantage that Christians in particular, in Britain, are driven underground. It is probably a mixture of both.

TS Eliot (1888–1965) wrote:
“If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”

If there is anyone with a UK passport, no matter where you might be globally, I would urge you to declare yourselves by signing the petition.

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=20848

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2010/01/bishop-of-winchester-equality-bill-irrational-and-ignorant.html#more

Derek Pasquill

It appears nothing should disturb the nuptials of the Government and the Muslim Brotherhood. Police visits such as the one described above belong to the progeny.

Reb Shlomo Silverstein

"(I am sure other people use university property to make political comments, but never mind)"

In my experience of British universities, there are too many students who actually spend most of their time using the university resources to make political comment.

Thank you Melanie for telling us about this blog Seismic Shock. I've saved it to my favourites and will take a butchers soon.

SimonP

But if somebody publicly accused me of being a "holocaust denier," I would be very scared about what some people might do to me. I would want to get the police involved at the earliest opportunity.

David Skinner, yes it is a grave day. We would not have imagined, a decade or more ago, Britain would come to this.

Will God arise to protect his people and his name? I and others are joining you in prayer, and watching this space.

Neil Craiog

Clearly the police had no actual charge to make - the rev is entitled tom bring charges for libel uncer civil law if he believes he has a case but presumably doesn't. The police involvement to frighten his employer is a disgraceful act.

I am glad i am self employed otherwise Paddy Ashdown & friends would be able to do the same in regard to my expressed opinion of a party which so actively promoted unrepentent (ex-)Nazis publicly committed to racial genocide in Yugoslavia (Tudjman, Izetbegovic & the KLA)

Andy Gill

Given the amount of time Sizer spends attacking Israel, consorting with unsavoury individuals, and sicking the police on bloggers, one wonders how much time he has left to minister to his flock.

But I doubt giving spiritual guidance and comfort to his parishioners ranks very high on his list of priorities.

Rachael

The police are no longer answerable to the public, only to the political elite who've made their mindset turn against everything the public hold dear.

Leo McInstry laments:

http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/153967

"THE governance of Labour’s Britain increasingly resembles the workings of a lunatic asylum. All morality has been inverted. Justice has been turned on its head. Common sense is derided, crackpot ideology celebrated."

Suffolkbor

What would happen if an individual on the receiving end of a "freindly"visit from the police refused to talk to them ?

As there has been no crime committed then what would be their next move?

The police cannot force their way into your house or office for which they would surely need a warrant signed by a Magistrate.

My knowledge of the law is sketchy but I would imagine that if there is no suspected crime then the officers in question would not be able to obtain such a warrant .

I am very curious as to what would unfold in just such a scenario.

Elizabeth

Christian Concern for our nation (CCFON)(Andrea Williams) will be able to check out whether Seismic Shock has a case against the Police.CCFON were proactive in assisting the lady from BA who was banned from wearing a small cross on 'Health and Safety ' pretexts.

Mike

Thanks Melanie.
Note to Simon P: Rev Sizer had no compunction about telling the world I was on a par with Holocaust deniers because of my negative review of Ilan Pappe's 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' in 'Evangelicals Now'. But I didn't set the police on the good Rev. Holocaust deniers in this country have nothing to fear because, after all, it's not as though they're criticising Islam.

Glasspole

There is now a Fecbook group - "I am Seismic Shock"! Maybe the Police will visit me, after all, I am a Jew who is scared of anti-Zionists and antisemites. This Blog has no untruths on it; it has nothing illegal on it; it is not a kiddie-porn site. Why were West Yorkshire Police (not to mention Drs Sizer and McRoy)so scared by its contents?

Lisa

"Meanwhile people go about their business; worry about the economy; climate change; the war in Afghanistan; who will be voted off the next TV programme and the weather - completely and utterly oblivious to the immanent disaster that is about overtake them." David Skinner

Yes, but then the economy, climate change etc are all fairly relevant and Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) really isn't. Face it, even the winner of Celebrity Big Brother will have more real impact on mosyt people's lives than a load of superstitious nonsense believed in by a minority.

And long may it be so.

Groovy Times

Suffolkbor. Section 5 - public order offences. Usually does the trick when stitching people up for ambiguous misdemeanours

J. Isaacs

Superb analysis, as usual, by Melanie Phillips. Wonder how many more folks' favourites bars have now had "Seismic Shock" added, because of this police behaviour? Mine has.

david elder

Lisa pronounces that the next celebrity big brother will have more effect on people than religion. If so, it will bear out the saying (attributed perhaps apocryphally to Chesterton) that when people stop believing in God they believe not in nothing but in anything. Alien abductions, anyone?

Suffolkbor

Thank you Groovy Times .

I have just checked out section 5 public order offences
and find some of the wording in it highly ambiguous in it,self .

Paul Walter

David Skinner: "This really is the big one".

Really?

The debate centred on whether or not the word "proportionality" should be included in the bill or not - both sides agreed it didn't make much difference anyway.

Also the words "exists to" received a lot of focus - as to whether the phrase meant "intrinsic" or not.

And you dress this up as some massive battle between the state and the church. That seems very strange indeed.

Dr Howard Fredrics

This is far from a one off. I was prosecuted and convicted of harassment on the sole grounds of having posted a website exposing corruption at a British university, including connections with anti-Semitic organizations/individuals. For more info, please see the following articles:-
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409869
and
http://westminsterjournal.com/content/view/241/30

Adam B.

Such behaviour from Stephen Sizer is hardly surprising; after all, Sizer hates and demonizes the open, democratic Jewish state, which has free and fair elections, a free press and an independent judiciary, whilst he is apparently in awe of every tyrannical abusive and racist dictatorship in the Middle East. He merely wants to import such anti-democratic totalitarian values into Britain. Hence he calls the police when he reads something with which he disagrees.

His actions are pathetic.

Merrick

What was the criminal offence he was suspected of committing?

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 says you commit an offence if you pursue a course of conduct that harasses someone or causes them alarm or distress.

Section 7 makes the low threshold clear:

(3) A “course of conduct” must involve conduct on at least two occasions.
(4) “Conduct” includes speech.

However, the bar was lowered still further by an amendment in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 amended the law. A course of conduct was already something done at least twice to one person; now it's a crime if done just once to a group of two or more people.

As two people complained about the Seismic Shock post, I'd say they have a good case under the Protection from Harassment Act.

It's already been successfully used to protect Npower from press photographers dumping ash in Radley Lakes, Oxfordshire, as the balaclava-clad security guards were allegedly alarmed and distressed.

Elizabeth

Dear Merrick,
Does the 'offended' individual have to be named by the insulting person for the law to be applicable, do you know?
I ask because if for example demonstrators hold up placards with the legend 'death to infidels' or 'Israel is an apartheid state', is there grounds for prosecution under the Protection from Harassment Act if people complain to the Police?
It seems strikingly odd the way pro-Israel or pro-Christian people or organisations are finding the 'book ' thrown at them whilst individuals with pro-Palestinian or Islamist sympathies can seemingly get away with blood curdling threats,slurs and insults against Israel and the West, albeit not against named individuals.
Also is truth not a defence against allegations of 'harassment'?

Michael JR Jose

What has happened is that the lunacy of multiculturalism (how can ANYTHING NOT be multicultural, think about it), has been used against you to create a climate of irrational prejudice against free speech. Then the police have been politicized by the socialist govt to the point where they will lean on anyone who thinks that 'human rights' means free speech under the EU.

DB

Have there been any questions asked about this at Westminster? Or complaints to the police authority?

Meanwhile on Muslims and Islamists, a useful article can be found at :
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1409

Archie

Well indeed, Miss Phillips; but I would suspect there is more to it from somebody with the name of Sizer.

Barbara Stevens

What a revealing article, and so true; our police have been soaked in PR to the point of choking freedom of speech and thought which I understood was a right under the UN that all citizens can have. We don't have to agree, we don't have to understand completely but we should all defend the right to freedomm of speech including blogs which are after all someones own thoughts. No this shows us all the way this country has gone we are not now free, we all have to collectively obey the rules which have been forced upon us, and the equalities bill going through the lords, which they have altered, is another way of drowning us in PC and taking from us freedoms we used to take for granted. All though appease the minorities, and make us the English a lesser fact, but we won't tolerate it, and there is the dilemma will be appose with the ballot box or some other means, only time wil tell.

Dr Howard Fredrics

An update on my previous comment. My harassment conviction has now been overturned and in a new trial, the Judge found "No Case To Answer."
http://bit.ly/cbIZrI